The ‘Big Five’ social media platforms in South Africa have been shaken up, as TikTok leaps past Instagram into second place and challenges the dominant social network, Facebook, in several segments.
This is one of the key findings of the South African Social Media Landscape 2023 study, released by brand intelligence consultancy, Ornico, and market research house, World Wide Worx.
Facebook, with a commanding 56.7% penetration of South Africans aged 15 and over living in cities and towns, continues to dominate the social media scene. However, TikTok has seen explosive growth and surpassed Instagram to claim second position at 30.6%. Notably, TikTok’s appeal extends beyond its under-15 target audience, making significant inroads into the 15+ market. The study delves into this phenomenon further, examining the platform’s impact on different age groups.
Instagram remains a popular choice among South African social media users, boasting 27.6% penetration, while Twitter retains a significant following despite its troubled takeover by Elon Musk, standing at 22.5%. LinkedIn is far behind, but its 14.7% penetration is healthy for a professional networking platform that does not hold youth appeal.
The data is based on Ask Afrika’s Target Group Index (TGI), which surveyed 24,744 respondents. Data is weighted to the population and represents 28.1 million South Africans. Ornico and World Wide Worx also conduct a survey of social media usage by South Africa’s biggest brands and integrate the findings with several additional data sources into one of the country’s most anticipated research reports of the year.